This account is pending registration confirmation. Please click on the link within the confirmation email previously sent you to complete registration.Need a new registration confirmation email? Click here

Biocryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) Is Today's Perilous Reversal Stock

Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer or Stephanie Link.

Trade-Ideas LLC identified
Biocryst Pharmaceuticals (
BCRX) as a "perilous reversal" (up big yesterday but down big today) candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Biocryst Pharmaceuticals as such a stock due to the following factors:

BCRX has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $16.4 million.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company, designs, optimizes, and develops novel drugs that block key enzymes involved in the pathogenesis of diseases. Currently there are 3 analysts that rate Biocryst Pharmaceuticals a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 1 rates it a hold.

The average volume for Biocryst Pharmaceuticals has been 951,200 shares per day over the past 30 days. Biocryst has a market cap of $595.6 million and is part of the health care sector and drugs industry. The stock has a beta of 3.34 and a short float of 17.5% with 5.22 days to cover. Shares are up 32.6% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Monday.

TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Biocryst Pharmaceuticals as a
sell. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its disappointing return on equity and generally high debt management risk.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Biotechnology industry and the overall market, BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.

The debt-to-equity ratio is very high at 8.80 and currently higher than the industry average, implying increased risk associated with the management of debt levels within the company. Despite the company's weak debt-to-equity ratio, the company has managed to keep a very strong quick ratio of 3.42, which shows the ability to cover short-term cash needs.

BCRX, with its very weak revenue results, has greatly underperformed against the industry average of 10.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues plummeted by 58.5%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.

This stock has increased by 514.90% over the past year, outperforming the rise in the S&P 500 Index during the same period. Regarding the future course of this stock, we feel that the risks involved in investing in BCRX do not compensate for any future upside potential, despite the fact that it has seen nice gains over the past 12 months.

BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS INC has improved earnings per share by 26.3% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past year. We feel that this trend should continue. This trend suggests that the performance of the business is improving. During the past fiscal year, BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS INC continued to lose money by earning -$0.79 versus -$1.26 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings (-$0.53 versus -$0.79).